Artists virtually gatecrash Google's DevArt Barbican exhibit

A collective of coders and artists who go by the name Hack the Artworld have gatecrashed the Google-sponsored DevArt exhibition currently taking place at the Barbican in London.

The artists have uploaded their own digital artworks to a website and have placed location markers within the DevArt exhibition itself -- digitally fencing it off, so that only visitors to the Barbican can access the artworks on their smartphones or tablets.

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The DevArt exhibition is meant to be an exploration of art that has been made with code, but it has not chimed well with everyone involved in the digital arts community, many of whom have been displeased by various elements of Google's efforts. On the Hack the Artworld website the artists have published an open letter addressed to Larry Page and Sergey Brin laying out their objections in full.

Their first problem is with the name of the exhibition itself. "Art made with code and computers has been around since the 1950s.

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There is no need to define it as DevArt, and market it as something shiny and new." They point to several artists and a number of exhibitions from the 60s and 70s that contain similar works of art to Google's own exhibition. "All of this happened before you guys were born," they write, scathingly.

They also believe that the competition Google ran before they commissioned artists was exploitative. "We can't afford to work on a piece of art for two months, only not to get the commission in the end. We have to pay the rent, and eat once in a while too," they write, explaining why they didn't enter the DevArt competition.

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Another issue was that Google apparently demanded that artists use its own technology to create artworks for the exhibition, which the collective describes as "a bit awkward". "It's like asking a sculptor to use graffiti as a medium. Let artists choose and create their own tools, and they will make better art."

If people want to support the promotion of digital art, the artists suggest that people buy it and start to collect it instead.

They also suggest visitors check out their own virtual exhibition while they are inside the Barbican -- they may not have been afforded space within the Barbican's galleries, but they seem to be adamant that this shouldn't prevent them from exhibiting there.

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The collective also used Google Maps to implant the location markers for the exhibition markers. We're not sure whether this contradicts the cause, or whether it's a smart move to use Google's own tools against it.

Hack the Artworld is a clever idea alright, but if the artists are hoping to cause a stink they might need to start marketing their website a little better. The virtual exhibition has been open for the same length of time as the physical DevArt exhibition, which opened its doors on 3 July, but it's safe to say that the majority of visitors won't even have known of its existence. We only hear about it thanks to the Wall Street Journal, which reports than when it asked Barbican gallery attendants about the exhibition, they knew nothing about it.

In a statement given to Wired.co.uk the curator of the exhibition, Conrad Bodman, said: "Digital Revolution is all about provoking debate about the past, present and future of digital creativity and we welcome Hack the Art World's contribution to this discussion. "Google has been an excellent partner to work with on the DevArt section of the exhibition. Their support has provided an outstanding opportunity to artists working with code by investing in them to present large-scale new commissions as part of a wider exhibition that will significantly raise the profile of digital art."

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Executive creative director of Google's Creative Lab Steve Vranakis said: "For the DevArt section, we worked closely with the Barbican to showcase some of the world's best digital artists.

Artists have been using code in their works for decades and we hope that this exhibition will help to raise awareness of not only those involved but artists around the world who are creating digital art."

A Google spokeswoman added that art is often categorised by its media and that for the competition element of the exhibition, artists were ask to include one Google product in their technology palette, but were not disqualified if they didn't